CHAPTER 16

As soon as Julie was dressed, she grabbed the latest copy of the Journal of the American Medical Association and shoved it in her bag. Then she hopped in her car and drove to the LMK for brunch. She found parking on one of the old cobblestoned streets around the corner from the restaurant. The place was packed when she arrived, but she found a free spot at the counter. Spying Buster through the open window behind the counter, she gave him a little wave. Buster touched the tip of his baseball cap to her, gave her a slow smile, and then went back to working.

While she waited for one of the servers to take her order, she turned around on her seat to check out who was there. So many new faces dotted the place—a testament to Royce Hogan’s push to increase tourism, no doubt—but she saw a few people she recognized. Melinda Cook was there with her elderly grandmother, both dressed in their Sunday best, and the Millers were seated in a back booth. Billy noticed her and gave her a big wave. She smiled and waved back.

“Here you go, Julie,” Rachel said, setting a teacup and saucer in front of her. “Earl Grey, just the way you like it.”

“Thanks, Rachel,” she said, giving the dark-haired woman a little smile. She loved being part of this community.

“So what can I get for you? Your usual?”

“Yes, please.”

“No problem. We’re super busy today, but I’ll send Lexie out when she has a few minutes.”

“Thanks. I’d like that.”

She pulled out the medical journal but didn’t read for long. Despite the crowd, the food came out in short order, with a twisted orange slice on her plate, Buster’s way of saying hello. The man didn’t talk much, but she knew he liked her—and not just because she’d patched him up more than once. He was devoted to Lexie, and because Julie looked out for her, too, it meant that she and Buster were on the same team. Just then, Lexie came out of the back, wiping her hands on her apron.

The petite woman took one look at Julie and let out a low whistle. “Oh, my, my, my,” she said. “You finally did it.”

“Did what?” Julie said.

“It’s written all over your face.”

“What’s written?” Julie asked, getting exasperated.

Lexie just gave her a look that said she knew it all. “There you go again, forgetting that I’m married to one of them.”

Oh. Did that. She felt a blush creeping down her neck and studied the curve of the orange peel. True to Star Harbor, her personal business was on full display. “It was kind of inevitable.”

“Well, heck, don’t sound so happy about it,” Lexie said.

Julie looked up. Her friend was watching her carefully. “It’s not that I’m unhappy. It’s just that things are …”

“Complicated?”

“Yes.” Like everything else about the man.

Lexie rolled her eyes. “Why am I not surprised? With the Grayson boys, there’s always some complication. Want some advice?”

Julie shrugged. “Sure.”

“Like I told you before, try to enjoy it. I knew that Cole would be good for you and I think you’re good for him.”

“Mmm,” she said. If Lexie only knew how much she’d enjoyed it—over and over and over again!

As if she knew what Julie was thinking, Lexie gave her a smile. “I can tell that you’re already considering the possibilities. Unfortunately, I have to get back to the kitchen, but I want to hear more. Talk to you later,” she said, dashing off. Just as Lexie ran back to the kitchen, the door jingled and out of the corner of her eye, Julie caught a flash of red hair.

“Avery!” she called out from her seat.

Avery walked up to her right away. “Hi, Julie. Great to see you! I’ve been meaning to give you a call. Kate had her six-month checkup on Friday, and she’s still cancer-free.”

“I’m so glad to hear that,” Julie said. “I’ll have to follow up with CCH to get her office file updated.” Julie had helped Avery and Emma navigate the confusing world of hospitals and treatments when Kate, a breast cancer survivor, had come down with pneumonia a few months ago. Though Kate had been treated at Cape Cod Hospital, Julie was still her primary physician and acted as a liaison among all her caregivers. “And how are you doing?”

“Well,” Avery said. “I’m still enjoying my new job at Falmouth Family and Children’s Services. There’s been a huge learning curve, since half of the position is educating other social workers. Lots of reading and distilling ideas, but I really like it. You were right about Theresa Vasquez. She’s amazing to work for.”

Julie couldn’t help but smile. “So pleased it’s been working out for you.”

“I wouldn’t even have considered the job if you hadn’t recommended me to Theresa. I owe you so much thanks.”

“Which you’ve given me again and again,” Julie said, hoping to stem any effusiveness. The last time Avery thanked her, she’d gone on for ten minutes and Julie had turned bright red—right in the middle of one of Babs’s dinners. “Seriously, I’m just happy knowing that you’re in a good place, and that you’re thriving.” Julie pointed to an empty seat beside her. “Would you like to sit down?”

“No thanks,” came a deep voice. “We need a private booth in the back.”

“Theo,” Avery said, her blue eyes lighting up. When the big man approached, Avery tipped her face up to his and he kissed her briefly, but passionately. She turned back to Julie. “Theo was just parking the Jeep at the wharf. We got back to Star Harbor last night after spending the evening on Nantucket.”

“How nice,” Julie said, watching the way Avery’s features went all dreamy when talking about her fiancé. Julie glanced up at Theo. He was handsome, no doubt about it, from his black-as-night hair, to his impressive build, to the otherworldly green eyes shining behind his glasses. Even the imperfect, broken nose looked good on him.

Now Theo was eyeing her speculatively. She swallowed and looked away. One night with Cole and she’d been marked. “I don’t want to keep you. Please, enjoy your brunch.”

“Okay. ’Bye, Julie,” Avery said. “See you soon.”

“Catch you later,” Theo said, leading Avery toward the back of the restaurant, his hand on her back.

That gesture only served as a reminder of Cole. With difficulty, she tried to refocus on her journal article—a less-than-fascinating read about the prevalence of E. coli in the intestinal tracts of rats—and to keep her mind off Star Harbor’s most reformed bad boy.

Despite her distraction, Julie finally got sucked into the article. She came out of her stupor only to realize that someone had taken away her empty plate and left the check. She quickly pulled out her wallet and signaled to Rachel that she wanted to pay. She’d just put twenty dollars on the counter when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“Dr. Kensington, how are you?” Pru Miller said in her well-modulated voice, Harry at her side and Billy clinging to his mother’s leg.

“Fine, thanks.” She smiled down at the little boy. “How are you doing, Billy?”

Billy buried his face in his mom’s blouse.

Pru just smiled. “So much better thanks to your quick work last month. I don’t think there will be any scarring at all. We’re extremely pleased with the way you handled our little boy. In fact, Harry and I would love to get to know you better, personally. Please come to our annual Memorial Day barbecue.”

Harry nodded. “Join us.”

“Thanks, I’d love to come.” Being invited to the famous Miller barbecue, attended by Boston’s most important families, was considered akin to being on the A-list, even by big-city standards. It might be fun to see some celebrities. Maybe Sebastian and Lexie would be going. She’d have to ask them. But that mattered a lot less than having Pru and Harry extend her a personal invitation.

“Great, then. We’ll be expecting you. Cocktails at six. Dinner at seven. Fireworks after dark. I’ll send a formal invitation in the mail. Oh, and feel free to bring a date.” She took Billy by the hand. “Come on, honey. Let’s go.”

“Good to see you, Dr. Kensington,” Harry said, ushering Pru and Billy to the door.

Julie sat there for a moment, stunned. She thought she’d been cracking open a window by letting Cole in. Little did she realize she’d thrown open the whole door. Now, not only was she thinking about working less, but people were coming out of the woodwork to integrate her into the community. They’d probably been there the whole time and she hadn’t even noticed. Interactions flashed back in her mind—Emma Newbridge asking if she’d like to come to a lecture with her, Lexie Meyers inviting her to a food-and-wine pairing at her cottage, Babs inviting her to dinner again and again, waiting for her to finally put aside her work and say yes. They’d all waited until she was ready. Her chest swelled with happiness.

These friendships were far more important than making sure her business was a few extra thousand dollars in the black. Somehow, she knew she’d be just fine. She managed the practice well, and all it would take was another half-year under her belt to solidly cement her position. Working herself to the bone wouldn’t help her achieve anything faster; it would just burn her out.

She smiled. Maybe Julie Kensington in love wasn’t ready to throw caution to the wind and give up her workaholic ways altogether, but she was more than ready to lighten up.

Cole loved having a plan. And thanks to Julie’s stolen prescription pads, he had a good one. A really good one. He stood in the conference room of the Sheriff’s Department, a street map of Barnstable County tacked up to a whiteboard in front of him. Using Star Harbor as the central point, he’d drawn concentric circles around the little town, radiating outward in ten-mile increments. Red points dotted the map, each representing a location where prescriptions could be filled.

On the conference room table was a printout of the names of all of those places. He and his team would go through them, one by one, to figure out if any were connected to the oxy being used. First he’d zero in on the ones with unusually high levels of activity. Then he’d try to get leads on the most probable suspects.

He anticipated that just the setup for the sting could take weeks, even months, but he welcomed the challenge. Sure, he was chomping at the bit to make some arrests, but he wanted to take his time—both to make sure the arrests stuck and to ensure that Julie’s good name wasn’t damaged through this investigation.

Hank Jacobs walked in and gave him a nod. “Good break with Dr. Kensington’s prescription pads.”

“Wish she’d thought to give up the intel earlier, but better late than never. Thanks to those serial numbers, they’ll be much easier to trace.”

“Agreed. But we can’t start on this until we get clearance from the medical board and the DEA.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t start the groundwork. By the time we get the clearance to do our sting, we’ll be almost ready to go.”

“Good thinking.”

“You going out on patrol now?” he asked Hank.

“Yes. And Rhonda Lee is about to go on break.”

“No problem. I need a few hours to get through this stuff. Ask her to send the phones through the main dispatch, same as she always does. They know how to get hold of me if they need me.”

“Will do, boss.”

Cole grunted and turned back to his work, hearing the front door to the station house open and shut as Hank left. He’d need to talk to Val later, to see if the Feds had dug up anything. Maybe he’d check with Chief Michaelson, too.

After hours of staring at the whiteboard, Cole rubbed his fingers over his eyes and sighed. When he went to grab some coffee, the station house was quiet. Even Rhonda Lee had to be on break again. It was at times like these, when he was alone with only his thoughts, that the tough stuff at the edges of his consciousness started to creep to the forefront of his mind.

Where had that damn nightmare come from, anyway? I thought I was done with them. Thought I’d finally put that chapter of my life behind me.

He’d pushed Julie to confront her own issues last night, but hypocrite that he was, he’d barely confronted his own. He’d been so focused on being a soldier and a cop for so long that he’d forgotten what it was like to be a man. And he was desperately afraid that if he looked underneath that battered armor he’d put up, he wouldn’t like what he saw. And neither would Julie.

She wanted to see the best in everyone, even him. But how would she react when he showed her how messed up he was? Sure, she’d shown she could handle the nightmares, but they were the symptoms, not the cause. It was everything he’d worked to suppress—the guilt, the anger, the pain. He couldn’t let it go. Just buried it deep and kept moving toward that redemption that always seemed out of reach. And now that he had Julie to worry about, he felt his control slipping away. Thinking about her in danger pushed him close to the edge.

He knew he needed to be man enough to go back to therapy, but a long, hard look at himself was exactly what he didn’t want right now. Fighting the demons was difficult enough without introspection—just one of the reasons he hadn’t gone back to that psychologist. He’d gotten his PTSD relatively under control, and honestly, he was afraid of what he’d uncover if he peeled back more layers.

Being with Julie had been beyond his wildest imagination. She’d given 100 percent of herself—no holding back. But he’d given something, too. He’d showed her that dark part of himself and she hadn’t run, though by rights she should have. He wasn’t ready to face his demons head-on. Not yet. But with her at his side, for the first time, he thought he might have a shot at it. For her, he wanted to fight. He wanted to show her that he could be the man she thought he was.

Setting his jaw, he took his coffee and walked back to the conference room. He still had a lot to plot out, and he couldn’t waste more time thinking about his failures. He wanted to focus his efforts where he had the control: his work.